A closer look at The Fashion Temple, 2nd-prize BANGKOK: IAM FASHION winner

Rendered in neon colors and inspired by traditional Thai building typologies, "The Fashion Temple" by Jun Ong and Raphael Cheng from Malaysia recently won second prize in the BANGKOK: IAM FASHION competition.

Organized by HMMD Competitions, entrants around the globe proposed designs for a regional ASEAN Fashion Hub in Bangkok for fashion design students and emerging local fashion designers to gather. The hub would provide open collaborative spaces for workshops, labs, facilities, and other programs.

Check out Ong and Cheng's approach right below.

Project description:

"The Fashion Temple is a centre that promotes and cu ltivates the thriving fashion industry of Thailand through three containers
SHOW
SPECULATE
 SHOP.  WIth an ambition to  be the fashion capital of ASEAN, The Fashion Temple
is a
cultural device
that breeds an appreciation towards vernacular fashion, arts and architecture,  translating  ideas  into  a  robust & unique fashion commerce industry."

"Looking at two vernacular Thai typologies, the ‘wat’ – being  an  information  container  and  a  place of worship and also the ‘sala,’ which it an inverts the ‘wat,’ becoming a shelter for teaching, learning and social interaction. The ‘wat’ and ‘sala’ acts as a mechanism to establish program hierarchy and characterizes the two sides of the fashion industry; one (solid) housing knowledge, craft and design, and the other (void) housing performance and exhibition, directed towards the public."

‏"It is also a time capsule; encapsulating the undisturbed fashion heritage with the progressive fashion industry of Thailand and ASEAN; archiving the past for the future.  The iridescent metal façade is an ode to the colorful Thai temple roof tiles that are not only ornamental but also enable ventilation and shade from rain and sun.  ‏The Fashion Temple is also a transformer a highly transformable device that uses architecture to incubate new fashion ideas, promote unique interaction amongst designers & stage world-class events."

"The
Fashion Temple strives to be a symbol, icon and a highly respected fashion institution worldwide icon & symbol. 

1. SHOW: Facing Phloen Chit Rd, a retail haven, the BFH inverts the traditional retail frontage and puts the back-of-house & the behind-the-scenes to the forefront. It showcases various fashion objects while being able to host fashion events and also become a highly curated gallery space & fashion mecca.

2.  SPECULATE: The fashion lab - where the cross-pollination of new avant-garde fashion ideas with traditional techniques occurs through interactive open studios, workshops and multi-disciplinary forums. Speculation in fashion allows for fresh unique ideas to be born, incubated, branded and then tested in the real world.

‏ 3. SHOP: The real-word test-bed for Bangkok's up and coming fashion designers, where products are curated to gradually create strong  brands.  Designers & digital technology are brought together to poach."

See the rest of the BANGKOK: IAM Fashion hub winners here.

More project images in the thumbnails below.